S3E07 – How to Navigate Branding Challenges

Is branding more than just marketing? Delve into the world of brands as we analyze the core of branding, from emotional connection to custodian challenges. Discover the interplay between consumers, employees, and vendors, unraveling the craft of impactful branding. Understand that branding goes beyond marketing, shaping our perception of the world. Join us and unlock the secrets of brand custodianship!

Discussion Topics: How to Navigate Branding Challenges

• World Cup, Anthems, and Brand Blitz
• Branding is misunderstood in India
• What will your brand be in the long-term?
• Brands as emotional assets have their own value
• Think of your brand as a person in a group setting
• What are the challenges with brand custodians?
• Case study of a poor consumer experience
• Closing

Transcript: How to Navigate Branding Challenges

Welcome to another episode of Damn Good Marketing Podcast. Well, this is my favourite time of every four years. One of us enjoys the Cricket World Cup quite a lot. It’s a fun time and it’s in India, so you don’t have to watch it at odd times. That also helps. But it got me curious.

World Cup, Anthems, and Brand Blitz

I saw a video circulating about this. Event anthem, right? There was a song video and then you see different brands trying to capitalise on the event and some are sponsors. Some aren’t so lucky. So they try to use other ways to associate.

And somehow there’s a feeling that like, how does someone make it all come together? Because there are so many bits and pieces for what is essentially for me, one big event slash brand, which is the ICC World Cup. it’s almost a very public IP. Nobody can own it. In fact, a lot of interesting campaigns we saw around the World Cup, a lot of the good campaigns, the muscle behind the marketing really came, I think, from the brands, other brands themselves.

Like I remember Pepsi having a huge role to play back in the 90s. And I think the celebrity of the players also, right? Sachin at that time was one of a kind in some ways and every time he came out onto the pitch, there was something to be said in that context.

The interesting thing that you brought out about such in et cetera, that I just realised there’s one more entity who’s kind of putting this brand out there because earlier I didn’t have access to such in, but today, for example, after every match, there’s without posting his own pics.

There’s KL Rahul posting his pics. They’re doing video interviews. They’re talking about how the match went and they’re giving me insider tidbits. What were we talking to each other about on the pitch? What, but I didn’t have access to all of this when, Sachin’s heyday, was.

You watch the match on TV and in the paper the next day and then you never see him again until the next match, right? In fact, it’s interesting in Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People, the guest there makes a case for saying, that the reason creators have had a boom is because celebrity is more accessible now.

Branding is misunderstood in India

And I was also just thinking like then what happens to the brand, right? Because the same Sachin who walked out with the trophy didn’t really make the front page. Like where is the cricket fever? Apparently, it’s not happening and it just kind of reminds me of how difficult it is, especially in a country like India to be the custodian of a brand, if I could call it that, because we see so many interesting cases, anecdotes of, how branding can be misunderstood.

Yeah, not an easy job and I hope outside of all the niggles that have also been part of the World Cup this year the marketing push really does kick in because usually even someone like me, who’s not at all a cricket fan. And this time of year, or at this time of four years, I can’t help but listen to something and I know what’s going on, but this time I’m not.

Because it’s also a lot more private, right? Like we are watching on our phones. So for example, someone in your house could very well be following it on an app or, watching on their phone and you’re not even aware of that.

But yeah, it’s a challenge I’m sure. Right. For folks like you on the branding side when you work with clients who have such a large let’s say sphere of influence. And who could also be projecting your brand? And in fact, as we are heading into the Dussehra Diwali Christmas festive season, there are, there’s a lot riding on, the festive period this year, right?

The three years of the pandemic, you could say, no, because of that people are not spending or, the festive spirit is a bit dampened even last year, you could get away with it because people are just recovering and everything is, we don’t know how to be normal anymore.

But this year, what excuse do you have? And the fact is that it’s quite interesting because social media and the memes that we see on social media are usually a good indicator of how people are thinking, right? And some interesting conversations around, like in the past, if someone was being stupid, then the meme would go, I hope they don’t reproduce like that was the, but now when a similar context is presented, the meme goes, I hope climate change takes right.

And it’s interesting because you suddenly realise what is top of mind for a lot of people. People are questioning their own consumption patterns and, proof of what’s happening around us is very clear and present. In general, I feel like when you’re setting a budget.

Budgets are usually still quite old school, right? You will do the same themes and decorations and offers and discounts and win a coin and, so many different ways of doing the same thing. But unfortunately in India, the brand is still a very nascent idea, despite us having seen, and experienced so many brands ourselves, celebrities are a brand. A lot of homespun, coming home to Siaram it’s not that we don’t know how brands work. It’s just the scientific thinking around it is probably still a little new and nascent which is where I find the gap arises really.

What will your brand be in the long-term?

I think the core question that a lot of brand managers ideally who should be part of the system should be asking is, what is this going to mean in terms of long-term impact, right? Today, I may spend an X amount of money, and I might recover from it, but once I put myself out there in a certain way. And that is not received well enough.

The long-term ramification of that event is going to be very unpleasant. Today everything is very short-lived because like, look at us, when we start talking of brands and lasting brands, we can end up going back to the Amuls and the Bajajs of the 80s, right? We’re not thinking of something very recent even like a Tanishq or a wild craft or so many brands which have established themselves, but they all seem a little more fleeting in our minds.

Because there are so many ways to consume it probably makes the job of that brand custodian even harder because you always want to, I’m wondering like, do you create for the moment and say, hey, I don’t expect to be remembered 20 years from now. I’m only aiming for. Like the current three-year buzz around something.

Brands as emotional assets have their own value

No, the only downside of that kind of thinking is that brands as emotional assets have their own value. Like if we were to take some of the largest global brands today. Maybe half of their valuation actually comes from their revenue. The other half is in the perceived value, which is what the brand is.

Right? And perceived value allows you to sell other stuff tomorrow. Like the reason why even Apple holds a hostage for iCloud memory or, tries to make me subscribe to Apple TV, but also rent movies that I want to watch. Additionally, the reason I’m not still fully detached from that ecosystem is because there is a perceived value in saying when Apple does something, they do it well.

So let me, this seems like a small price to pay for experiencing that quality. Delivery, right, which is the reason why sometimes when Apple products conk, it’s an emotional feeling and exactly how emotional, because we weren’t expecting them to give up on us. Right. And that’s the reason why, today the iPhone 15, costs a lack and a half.

But the fact is that finally the perceived value of the brand Apple still to this day, despite them pulling all or rather I would say the reason they can get away with so many things is because the perceived value is one of quality and innovation.

Right? So, that’s a clear example of how you can charge people for something that’s not even real. So it’s not that I can say, I can’t, or I’m okay to not think long term in terms of my brand. Everybody should be thinking long-term in terms of their brand. And interestingly, the moment you start thinking long-term, a lot of the knee jerks, reactions and responses, will start quickly fading away.

In fact, Subha, we’ve spoken about this before and you’ve been a victim more recently as well in terms of how much brands communicate with customers. So where does that need to say 10 things coming from constantly?

I think it’s coming from not knowing what is the one thing that you need to say. And you would know that if you knew who you were as a brand, I think you’re right. That’s what it really comes down to. And I think every brand needs someone saying, Hey, this is what we are. And this is what we definitely aren’t.

And I mean, we’ve talked about ads even on this podcast saying who approved that? Like why is that out there? And honestly, there have been instances where there have been 20 people in the room, including us and nobody’s been able to say this is a bad idea, right?

It also comes down to what is the pain point of the person who is the group of individuals who are trying to solve that problem. Like we were talking about the aftermath of a pandemic if we were to take retail as one category in that context. See, we’ve quickly followed it up with inflation.

We followed it up with global catastrophes, it’s not exactly a pleasant time to be on planet Earth if I could put it that way. With the optimistic consumerism of the 90s and the early 2000s, suddenly you’re discovering Boney M for the first time. That’s not the environment in which we are, operating today.

So in that environment, why would people not buy? I think it starts to seem a little more obvious, right? Like no longer can I say if you bought for this much, then you win this award because they are not in that headspace, right? If the reward was really that important to them, they’d just buy that damn thing. Like they will not be, it’s not a fun experience, right? Festivals have now become more about spending time with family, with loved ones, small group events and environments.

And certain things stay, like it’s not, just because COVID 2,000 other people in a closed room. That’s not happening. So the things that get us excited are very different today. So once we work with that insight, and there’s an interesting podcast called Sweathead, they call themselves a strategy podcast.

That’s all they talk about. And in one context, he says, if you’re going to write a creative brief, then the longest amount of time you should spend is by dwelling on the problem. If you have sat with the problem for long enough, that’s where the insight comes from and if you really kind of work backwards, how many brands are really, or even how many individuals are able to take that kind of time to say, I need a week just to explore this problem statement.

No. And that is so powerful and I think also this is a drive of what can I put out there. It’s all just so, reactive or you’re, you are desperate to not miss an opportunity.

Don’t miss that. Oh, my viewership peaks on Tuesday afternoon. So Tuesday morning, whatever I can think of just put it out there, right? But there’s an interesting way to think about this also as an ecosystem of, different stakeholders, right?

Think of your brand as a person in a group setting

So if you were to think of a brand as a person who knows or who interacts with a bunch of different people or groups of people, right? Then obviously there is the customer, but there are also your employees, your investors, and vendor partners. There’s also, I would go so far as to say an ecosystem of future employees or future stakeholders, right?

I think it’s important to qualify what these relationships are to each other, right? For example, when a brand interacts with a vendor, the priority could be being seen as a good place to work with.

Another priority could be being seen as an easy company to, process invoices and procurement and whatever else. Likewise, that happens with the vendor side as well. So these two things matter, right? So social standing reputation. As well as ease of doing business. If we see these as the main pillars, these very same pillars would not apply to maybe a different stakeholder, like an employee, right?

An employee is looking for a place where they can grow, where they can, build their own individual career while also contributing to a bigger vision. So, and I think we all do this as people in our lives, right? Our relationships with each other are very different based on how we met what was the context and what kinds of conversations.

So what a brand custodian can do is to start asking the questions around what this relationship is qualitatively like then you’ll know like, is this on brand? It’s almost like a relationship with a friend, right? Like there are certain things you might not see because that friend is sensitive to, it’s exactly the same thing.

What are the challenges with brand custodians?

You’re right, that’s interesting. The trend analogy, because there are also times when I don’t know, like kind of those outside the changing room moments where you say, Hey, that’s not your look or that’s not on brand for you. So what are the challenges that you face? I’m sure you’re in the room often with brand custodians.

What are they? Maybe the top, they may be your pet peeves also, but what are those two, or three things that you sometimes find that consistently or often not doing optimally and what could they maybe do differently? I think we’re not receptive to the idea of what a brand really means. It’s too abstract.

And in fact, unfortunately, we made it worse by introducing things like brand archetypes and things like you’re the hunter and the shadow and what, like finally, I think what we’re all trying to do is to capture something that cannot be captured in a bottle.

It’s like saying. This entirety of the human will be defined by an MBTI, right? Like it’s not going to happen, it will highlight one aspect of who they are, right? And even then, in the closest of relationships, you only still know one or two aspects of the human being. So to remove that blindness, not a lot of business leaders, or owners are very willing.

We see a lack of willingness and unfortunately, the way it translates is into those knee-jerk reactions, right? So you’ve built a nice brand system. And the only tangible thing in that entire brand system is actually your logo. So you start fiddling with the logo. 

But really, I mean, how significant is a logo if the brand itself doesn’t have any record. Right. So sometimes you really need to take a step back and say, why am I even doing this quantum of work? If I’m going to go in for a rebranding and we’ve seen this happen where people have rebranded and then just gone to town with the new colours with the new logo, but the cohesion in terms of why have we rebranded?

Nobody understands. The customer doesn’t understand. The vendor doesn’t understand. Interestingly, the biggest gap that I find is somehow you do all these things, but you don’t communicate with your vendor ecosystem and with your internal employee ecosystem. You don’t do it. You just shove it down their throats and you hope.

They’ll get it, which I find fascinating to me. That you wouldn’t take the time to write because what happens then? Right? So you have five logos, each employee will start using a different logo because they’re mandate just said, to update your email signature to your new logo. That’s all you don’t know which logo by logo.

So true. There are times when you’re interacting with a certain person. Organisation and hence multiple people in that organisation and you get such different types of email. Some have like 20 links in their signature and make you go to everything that’s happening on their website and some have nothing.

And so that cohesion is not there, though. They’ve all probably been given that one email, which says this is the brand collateral. And then do whatever you want with it, because I don’t know what to do with it. So that really not so much of a pet peeve, but it really hurts to see what is essentially a very beautiful science kind of butchered like that, I mean, here is an opportunity to essentially craft something from scratch where nothing existed.

Very few instances that I’ve seen people understand the value of, building something and building it consistently and doing it well. And it always surprises me, like if you ask them, why is it that you, why is this exercise important to you?

Usually, it comes down to legacy, like, Hey we’ve built this over 20 years. So there’s an emotional attachment. So I think more and more in businesses emotional quantification is important. And it’s like you said earlier, right? For if the data tells me Tuesday afternoon is important, then I’m feeling that knee-jerk necessity to go say something on a Tuesday afternoon.

Was this just feeling that emotional connection with some of these things and seeing them as a bigger personality exercise? And I think that piece is so important that the brand is not just your ads and what you’re putting on social media and what your brochure looks like. It’s the experience that I’m left with as a consumer at the end of the day, right?

Case study of a poor consumer experience

Like the jewellery brand that I was talking to you about. This is one of the large brands and their own online jewellery, right? And, but I, we happened to walk into a retail outlet. Now I get that if you’re online, then you’re expected to sign in, create an account, do all of that. And get some coupon code, apply it, everything.

Now in the retail store, after you have spent some amount of time picking out something guy had to take another and I’m not kidding you another 30 to 40 minutes to set up, my customer profile on his tablet machine. I had to download the app. The Wi-Fi was poor then I had to create an account.

He had to go and actually like as though he’s purchasing here to add to cart and, go through so much pain. Now in the retail store, you can’t expect me to behave like I would have done from the comfort of my couch.

And we’re calling it the omni channel experience and we’re all getting very excited about it. It was such a pathetic experience. And then after 10 minutes, I of, getting into the car, I opened my phone and I kid you not, There were 12 emails from the brand. Of each stage of this process for which I was physically present.

I think a lot of brand work is research work and I think sometimes we don’t do it well enough because we all seem to be in such a hurry to just get from point A to point B. I would say 50-60 per cent of your time as a brand team should not be spent in interacting with people.

In fact, the appeal of the industry to me in the first place was the amount of quiet time you’re supposedly going to get, right? Imagine a team, and especially this brand is large enough to be able to afford a team of people just travelling these stores, understanding where the gaps are.

Because you have to understand that in a country like India, even the internet is not a steady state, right? And if the shop happens to be in the lower basement, then you better believe nothing is downloading or uploading from there, right? So the reason they’re not catching this is because they are sitting and writing the brief for the next marketing campaign and the next thing.

So really please marketing and branding are not the same thing. They are very separate. Functions, and I think we could all benefit from I think thinking in those terms as well. No, very true. I think the and finally, all of that effort under that umbrella of marketing, branding, and just owning your brand comes to naught if it doesn’t tie in well for the customer.

Exactly. And knowing that customers often give us a very simple positioning in their heads, right? And this applies to even one person, two people, companies, and brands, they have already made up their mind as to who we are in their minds. Our job is simply to understand why. And if it’s a good positioning, you strengthen it.

If it’s not a good positioning, then you have a lot of work ahead of you. This thing to shift human cognition, but that’s literally all there is to it, right? Like you, if I think of decathlon, it’s like for me I have to buy swimwear in bulk. So, it’s cheaper to do it in decathlon and the product lasts.

That’s all. And that’s an interesting point you make, because I think slowly over a period of time, it’s not cheaper. But in our mind, in my mind, it’s still a cheaper alternative to other brands that I will now not visit because I have decided Decathlon is cheaper. And because if I’m in this in, if I’m experiencing this brand, it’s like this huge warehouse feels almost like a wholesale purchase rather than a retail then it’s got to be cheaper, right? The dial from the sack and not Maybe even that visual effect is engineering your mind into thinking that it could be right. I do hope that a lot more brands invest in the concept of brand But when it comes together, it’s so beautiful.

It is. It really is. And it’s one of the more fulfilling things to do. Again, it’s such an emotional work, right? It’s not logical, okay. And which is also sometimes the brand measurement of metrics, like what would you measure? How do you do it? We should really save that topic for another day. It’s an extensive one.

It’s a very colourful and diverse world. And if nothing else, we’d start seeing better billboards. We’d start seeing more entertaining content at the very least. If we were to just separate the role of brand as being so much more than just marketing, jet fuel. Makes sense. Hope you’re listening to brand guys and girls.

Closing

Yes. Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode of the damn good marketing podcast on all things branding. Interestingly, How do we separate both functions and what is the benefit of doing so? We hope you enjoyed listening to us. And if you have any questions, where to find us on LinkedIn, by the way, we are also on YouTube.

So if you need to passively listen on a different platform, we’ll share the link to the damn good marketing podcast on YouTube.